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ASSET Seminar: , Dinesh Jayaraman (University of Pennsylvania)

Levine 307 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

ABSTRACT: An important goal of the field sensorimotor robot learning is to do away with cumbersome expertise-intensive task specification, so that general-purpose robots of the future might learn large numbers of new skills. In this talk, I will discuss our recent work on algorithms that exploit goals as a versatile and accessible task specification interface. Goals might […]

Spring 2023 GRASP SFI: Ram Vasudevan, University of Michigan, “Can’t Touch This: Real-Time, Provably Safe Motion Planning and Control for High Dimensional Autonomous Systems”

Levine 307 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

This is a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Levine 307 and virtual attendance via Zoom. This week's presenter will be in-person as well. ABSTRACT A key challenge to the widespread deployment of robotic manipulators is the need to ensure safety in arbitrary environments while generating new motion plans in real-time. This talk describes a […]

MSE Seminar: “Natural Structural Materials: Lessons on Toughening Mechanisms, Weight Reduction, and Multifunctionality” (Virginia Tech University)

Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Structural materials that are damage tolerant, lightweight, multifunctional, and sustainable are highly desirable for many engineering applications. Such combinations of properties are often found in the biological world. Organisms from nature construct a variety of different biological structural materials for protection, predation, body support, camouflage, etc. Despite the fact that these materials are made from […]

ESE & MEAM Seminar – “Enabling Self-sufficient Robot Learning”

Raisler Lounge (Room 225), Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Autonomous exploration and data-efficient learning are important ingredients for helping machine learning handle the complexity and variety of real-world interactions. In this talk, I will describe methods that provide these ingredients and serve as building blocks for enabling self-sufficient robot learning. First, I will outline a family of methods that facilitate active global exploration. Specifically, […]

BE Seminar: “Engineering therapeutic immunity using (nano)biomaterials” (Natalie Artzi, Harvard Medical School)

Glandt Forum, Singh Center for Nanotechnology 3205 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

This seminar will be held in person only; snacks will be provided. Immunomodulatory therapies have advanced to clinical trials over the past decade for the treatment of a range of diseases and disorders, from cancer to diabetes to transplant rejection. However, the efficacy of these therapies remains limited, as challenges associated with off-target drug toxicity, […]

Spring 2023 GRASP on Robotics: Pulkit Agrawal, MIT, “Fun with Robots and Machine Learning”

Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

This is a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance via Zoom. This week's presenter will be in-person as well.    ABSTRACT Robots are getting smarter at converting complex natural language commands describing household tasks into step-wise instructions. Yet, they fail to actually perform such tasks! A prominent explanation for these […]

Spring 2023 GRASP Seminar: Larry Matthies, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, “Autonomous mobility in Mars exploration: recent achievements and future prospects”

Berger Auditorium (Room 13), Skirkanich Hall 210 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

This is a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Berger Auditorium (Skirkanich Floor B) and virtual attendance via Zoom. This week's presenter will be in-person as well.    ABSTRACT This talk will summarize key recent advances in autonomous surface and aerial mobility for Mars exploration, then discuss potential future missions and technology needs for Mars […]

MEAM Seminar: “Wall-modeled Large-eddy Simulation of the Turbulent Boundary Layer with Mean-flow Three-dimensionality”

Towne 309 220 S. 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

The capability to predict high-Reynolds-number turbulent flows is essential for many natural and engineering flows such as external aerodynamics of wind turbines and aircraft wings, flow over the hull of marine vehicles, atmospheric boundary-layer flow over complex landscapes and cityscapes. However, due to extreme disparity of scales present in high-Reynolds-number wall-bounded turbulent flows, any attempt […]

MEAM Seminar: “Material-Enabled Technologies for Soft and Fluidic Robots”

Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

The emerging field of soft robotics, which incorporates unconventional or compliant materials in autonomous systems, has simultaneously reshaped traditional robotics applications and introduced new use cases for robots. However, many useful classes of materials remain relatively unexplored, and furthermore, the vast majority of soft robotics research has targeted actuation and sensing, with power and control […]

(Re)Connecting in the Classroom: Evan C Thompson Lecture on Excellence in Teaching

Van Pelt Library, Kislak Center, 6th Floor 3420 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, United States

Lately there has been much talk in universities and the public about "the great disengagement." As we emerge from the pandemic era, many students and instructors alike are experiencing a lack of energy and motivation, and we are seeking encounters in the classroom that are transformative, rather than simply transactional. In this talk, Daeyeon Lee […]